Showing three new pieces of Molineaux Webb pressed glass which match items in the Molineaux Webb catalogue.

First we have a sugar bowl number 395, the earliest piece I have found to date (numbers are chronological for sugars, creams, and honeys, and go back, incomplete, to 382). Next another sugar, number 400. Finally there is a honey pot number 416 that is missing a lid.

To put these in context I have lined up 7 items, all in the catalogue. I can date these pretty well as I know item 430 (not shown) was registered in 1865, and that they produced about 15 to 20 new designs each decade. The line up shows items numbered from 395 to 422 which I believe takes us from 1845 to 1860, plus or minus a couple of years.

thanks Neil, very interesting. I know very little about this factory, and have rather ignored pressed glass of recent times, so would appreciate your explanation, if possible, as to whether there was a particular reason why MW were not registering some of their wares, although since obviously other factories were doing the same thing, maybe it was a cost issue or they considered that theft of some designs wasn't a problem:)P.S. Can you please put me down for the u. cream jug

Paul, I'm not sure why some items were registered and others not. Both M&W and Percival Vickers were quite similar in that they registered a few pieces in the 1840s and didn't bother again until the mid 1860s. I wonder if the outbreak of frosting mania in the 1860s encouraged them to start registering designs - their popularity perhaps triggering the need for design protection. I suspect the Manchester factories were frosting pressed pieces just a couple of years before their registrations started up again in 1864.

It's also possible with some of the early pieces that they didn't make the molds and didn't own the design. Early pressed plates seem to have originated from Birmingham mold makers. Whether they were made to order, or whether they were made and then marketed to the glass factories, I have no idea.

For a while now I have possessed a clear, pressed glass pedestal vase / ‘celery’ vase that I had been unable to identify. It has no marker’s marks, and no RD marks or numbers, though I had assumed it was mid-Victorian British. A search of reference sites for British pressed glass patterns drew a blank, as did the EAPG sites and the excellent www.pressglas-pavillon.de

Now, however, thanks to Neil’s post, I find that I have an unregistered Molineaux Webb pattern 416 large Honey Pot , and that it too is missing its lid.

What a fantastic site – congratulations, and thank you for all the hard work done by the site’s administrators and contributors.

The lid is presumably what made this item a ‘Honey Pot’, and the inside of the body on my pot certainly has a distinct (though rather narrow) step below the flared scallops of the rim, so I will definitely be looking for lidded vessels when trying to identify other ‘vases’ with interior step or lip.

I’m aware of the ploy of marking vases with the word ‘celery’ to imply that they were food containers and not merely decorative items, thereby avoiding tax, but I can’t remember seeing anything marked ‘honey’in the same way. Does anyone know if a similar ploy was used for decorative glass items using food names other than ‘celery’?

hello and welcome to the GMB - I think you are due for a medal having apparently waded through the entire glass pavillon site, the EAPG pages and British pressed glass patterns - a lot of looking by the sound of it, but glad that you had a positive result and found a maker for your piece.Of course, when a piece has an inside lip then it is obvious that there should be an accompanying lid but, having said that, pieces like this with scalloped or frilled rims can be misleading and tempt you to think that what you have is the entire thing. Suppose it's the idea that we tend to think lidded pieces have only smooth/flat rims, generally.Apolgies for :hj: - am posting a picture of an Ed. Moore piece from the 80013 suite with a scalloped rim - and without any inside lip - that I'd have put money on was not intended to have a lid. Shows how wrong you can be. In fact I'm in need of a lid for my piece, so if anyone.............

hope you will show some more of your pressed pieces, and look forward to seeing your pix.

In view this is your first post - would also add my personal congratulations on providing a well thought out piece of text, and showing that you have give much thought to researching your piece.

Will leave Lustrousstone to answer your last question regarding pieces that may or may not have included the word 'Honey'/or others - re purchase tax avoidance.

Thinking about this tax thing, tableware was not taxed as a luxury but vases were. A vase isn't much use on the table except for flowers or celery (or breadsticks but I don't suppose they appeared on Victorian tables), so I doubt any other words were used to avoid tax. Stick a lid on a vase and you have a biscuit or pickle jar and NOT a vase.